


Counterfeit Son

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Foxtrot [72]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, The Dollhouse - Fandom
Genre: Crossover, Dollhouse-level non-con, Gen, not actually RPF
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 16:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6292177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: author's choice, author's choice, Counterfeit Son. The first Sheppard family dinner after Foxtrot is imprinted with John Sheppard. Dave Sheppard POV. Set pre-series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Counterfeit Son

The very first time they did it, Dave was terrified. Dad had insisted that they just try it out with a client, and if it didn't work, they'd never do it again. But they had to try. To be safe, they chose a dinner with Matthew Harding, who'd never met John before. Dave wasn't sure that whether or not Harding knew what John looked like would be an issue, because Dave couldn't stop pacing, his nerves thrumming. Sure, he'd gone in for the neural scans with Rossum, he'd been briefed on how the program worked (and been given his own account, should he ever wish to purchase the services of the Dollhouse, which – no, he wouldn't, because he loved Kathy and would never do that to her). That wasn't the same as pretending that Joe, the sweet farm kid who'd come home with John at Thanksgiving and flown in for New Year's, was his brother.  
  
When the doorbell rang, Dave started, like a racehorse at the sound of the pistol.  
  
Dad cast him a look. "Calm down, son. You're a Sheppard. Act like it."  
  
Dave had heard that all his life, known his name was Sheppard before he'd known it was David. He took a deep breath, forced himself to calm, and it worked, or at least it worked enough that he could make a good impression.  
  
And then he heard the front door open, heard Joe say, "Hello, Father," exactly the way John would have.  
  
And Dad said, "Welcome home, son." And to someone else, "You can come pick him up after dinner."  
  
Dave crossed the living room and peered out the front window, and sure enough, there was a creepy black van in the driveway, like the kind government agents used to surveil a house (or so Hollywood would have people believe). Chances were Harding would think it was a special security team or something. He was full of himself like that.  
  
And then Joe, dressed exactly as John would have been, in dark slacks and a soft grey sweater, neat but not quite as formal as Dad would have liked, stood in the doorway.  
  
"Dave," he said, inclining his head, quirking his eyebrow, and it was all so John – and Joe looked so much like John – that for a moment Dave thought he was seeing a ghost.  
  
Because dammit, his brother was _dead_. Dad had refused to hold even a funeral, because someone would have found out, and nobody could find out. Sheppard Utilities was all Dad had left, and to keep it alive he needed both of them, heir and a spare.  
  
Dave curled his hands into fists. John hadn't been some damn spare. And Joe was a counterfeit. An impostor. But Dave said, "Hey, John. Glad you could make it."  
  
"Command performance," Joe drawled. But he smiled, and he stepped into the room, went to lean against the back of one of the wing-back chairs in a pose that would have sent their old tutors (schooled in traditional deportment) into fits. "How are things going with Kathy, by the way?"  
  
"Great," Dave said.  
  
"Is she going to be getting the Sheppard Wife diamonds, then?"  
  
"I hope so."  
  
"Good for you," Joe said, and his gaze turned distant.  
  
Dave let the silence go on for too long, and he had to say...something. Joe would notice what was up. Or would he? Was he programmed to just accept everything Dave said? "Uh...how's school?"  
  
"Good," Joe said. "Taking a survey course in asymptotic combinatorics. Pretty cool stuff." And he grinned – genuinely grinned.  
  
John had been majoring in business, a small concession to the Sheppard Family Ways, but Joe had been brilliant at math. This creature in front of him was a wraith, a doppelgänger, a changeling. A seamless mix of Joe and John, but he sounded and acted so much like John that Dave wanted to hug him and weep.  
  
Instead he said, "Seeing anyone?"  
  
The way John blushed was not John at all, was utterly Joe. "Actually, yeah. Met this girl in my poli sci class. Nancy. Went out on a couple of dates. I really like her."  
  
Nancy. Dave had already met her. She was a Dollhouse employee. By marrying Joe and living with him, she'd be in the best position to keep him safe, keep him in line.

Dave swallowed the lump in his throat. "Good for you." _He's John now,_ he told himself. _Remember that. He's your brother. Act like it, dammit!_

During dinner, when Harding showed up, it was easy to imagine that Joe really was his brother, because he acted exactly the way John would have in every situation. Every tilt of his head, lift of his brow, twist of his lips, sardonic comment that was undermining Dad but just polite enough to get away without censure. John's ghost was alive in Joe. More than once, Dave found himself smiling at Joe, recounting an amusing anecdote, and Joe joined in smoothly, as if he really did share the memory.

Harding smiled and nodded and laughed in all the right places, charmed, and Dave knew he and Joe were doing a good job. It had been a difficult dynamic to navigate, after Mom died, because she'd always been responsible to be the charmer while Dad and the boys were the confident ones, the impressive ones. And then Mom had died, and the duty should have fallen to John as the younger brother to be the charmer, but something in Mom's death had fractured whatever tenuous relationship John and Dad had, so Dave had to step in, pick up the slack, and somewhere along the way John realized how difficult it was, and now they were a team.

Just like old times.

Family.

As close to family as Dave would get, until he married Kathy and started a family of his own.

It was all going perfectly until the end of dinner, when Dave realized that Joe was being a little too charming, a little too sardonic, and he finally crossed a line, but though Dad's hand on his scotch tumbler went white-knuckled, he said nothing. Dave saw how Harding was looking at Joe, with something more than amusement in his eyes, and Dave wanted to throw up everything he'd eaten.

It had been Mom who'd warned him, when he was just sixteen, about some of his father's business partners.

"Be careful," she said. "They're powerful men, and they're used to getting what they want, and taking it if necessary."

At the time, Dave had worried about her, but she never left Dad's side during these shindigs, always the perfect hostess until the women and the men separated for the evening.

When Dave got a little older, she realized she'd been warning him about his own safety, and he wondered if she'd had that talk with John, or if she'd been waiting till he was sixteen. But John had always managed to find a way to conveniently escape once the meal was done, disappear to wherever he wanted, and return just in time for the goodbyes.

And then when Dave became an adult, he wondered about his mother's childhood, and, shudderingly, his father's.

Tonight, he was wondering about Joe, because there was something terribly coquettish about the way Joe dipped his head when he laughed at something Harding said, the way he peered up at the man through his lashes.

And then when Harding finally excused himself, Dad nodded tightly, showed him to the door, and Dave shook hands with the man.

Joe reached into his pocket, dug out a set of car keys that probably went to nothing but had a key fob for the old Mustang John had restored himself. "I'd better be heading back to the airport. Have a final on Monday. Good to see you again, Dave. Dad."

Harding put a hand on Joe's shoulder and said, "I'll walk you out. Keep me company till my driver arrives."

"Sure," Joe said, as easily and casually as John would have. When the door swung shut behind them, Dave's heart stopped for a second.

He turned and ran for the bathroom. He heaved and sobbed out his horror and grief, because his brother was dead, and he'd let himself help his father talk an innocent kid into becoming the counterfeit Sheppard son, and how could he have done this?

Easily enough, as it turned out, because he showed up for the business dinner the next month without a word to his father about what might or might not happen to Joe after.


End file.
